


locked in perpetual motion

by DesertRaven



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: 5.0 - 5.3 Spoilers, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Depression, Female Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Gen, Mentions of Suicide, Spoilers, Time Loop, no romance only angst, referenced character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:54:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26703286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertRaven/pseuds/DesertRaven
Summary: In which the Warrior of Light gets stuck in a time loop trying to save everyone.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	locked in perpetual motion

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't shared anything publically in years, so huge thank you to everyone who gave me the confidence to do this.
> 
> Special thanks to [WickedWiles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WickedWiles) for my first beta ever, and everyone at the [book club](discord.gg/qUNS6Rd) for their encouragement.

“Why am I...? Was it you who called me here?”

Ardbert’s body, but not Ardbert. The warrior had to keep reminding herself of that. When she didn’t respond, Elidibus turned to leave.

“Wait, please.” He didn’t turn back to her, but he did stop. “Is there any way… can you send me back?”

His head tilted slowly to one side. “Back where?”

Her mind raced through a thousand ways to phrase the question she needed to ask. She had pored over the texts in the Cabinet, scoured every inch of the ruins in Rak’tika, and returned to Amaurot countless times looking for answers, for some way to change the past.

Elidibus faced her again, his expression thoughtful. “Foolish girl. You believe you can save him?”

Her hands tightened into fists. She had seen it in him as he breathed his last, she could have reached him if only she had tried harder. “I have to try.”

“Do as you will, then.” Elidibus extended his hand and she reached for it tentatively. The world went black around her, until all she could see was the red glow of Elidibus’s Ascian mask.

——

The warrior woke in her suite in the Pendants. What had happened to her? Memories came back in flashes. The battle on Mt. Gulg, the light, G’raha Tia… Elidibus. The last hit her like a punch to the gut. How long had she been doing this? Months? Years? Elidibus had trapped her in her own personal hell as she tried again and again to rewrite the story.

She sat up slowly. Ardbert was there as he always was, as was the light spilling from the cracks in her skin. They couldn’t stop it, not then and not with all the knowledge she had gained over the past who knew how long. The only way to stop the light corruption was to join with Ardbert, and the only time that ever worked was when they killed Him.

“Ah, finally.”

“Not today, Ardbert.”

He looked shocked, as he always did when she woke in this mood. Sometimes she woke with a fresh spirit, the courage to try again even if trying meant failing. Today was not to be one of those days. She grabbed one of the bottles of liquor from the table. With any luck she could drink herself into a stupor for this entire replay.

Ardbert followed in her periphery for the walk to the Wandering Stair, but seemed to give up when she sat at one of the tables and uncorked the bottle. She didn’t bother with a glass. As usual, several of her friends tried to come see her. Word travelled fast in the Crystarium. She chased them all away with her foul mood. Ryne always took it the hardest, since she had tried so hard to stop the light. If only she had been able to, maybe He wouldn’t have been so disappointed in her. The one blessing to this endless loop was that she didn’t have to hear that over and over again.

The warrior was deep in her cups when she finally stood on unsteady feet. She would go to Him, this time. Find him before they were supposed to have fought. This never worked, but spending the hours with him before his, or her, inevitable death always granted some small measure of peace. She didn’t look too hard into why she could still use the aether to travel to Amaurot. Her fingers closed around the mostly full bottle on the table, using it to steady her swaying as she focused on transporting herself.

Per usual when she had been drinking, her arrival at the aetherite was graceless. The warrior stumbled sideways, barely hanging on to her bottle. But she had spent so much time here that she could make the walk to the capitol square even blind drunk.

The world spun as she stared up at the building. Beautiful. Some piece of her was homesick for this in a way she couldn’t understand. That she could never get Him to explain. She wanted to know who she was, or what he saw in her, but just like everyone in this cursed timeline, he forgot everything with each new loop. She drank deep from her bottle, willing herself numb with every swallow.

“Hades!”

She shouted his name, his true name, into the air. He would come to her this time. She giggled, taking another drink as she waited. It was like a game where she controlled all the pieces, but couldn’t actually change the ending. No matter what, she lost. So pointless.

“Ha- oh, there you are.” She had started to shout his name, but realized he had already appeared in front of her. “Must be nice to wink in and out of existence on a whim.”

His lip curled into a sneer at the sight of her. “You’re drunk.”

She shrugged. “Of course I am. We’re dying and it’s all… it’s all just hopeless isn’t it?” She dropped to the ground, kicking her legs out in front of her and leaning on one hand as she stared up into the darkness. Emet Selch still stood, looking down at her with a slight frown. “Oh, don’t look at me like that.”

“Does the warrior of light and darkness really accept defeat so easily?”

She sighed heavily. “I’m not in the mood.”

He stared down at her for another long moment before lowering himself to sit next to her. The sight of him sitting on the ground drew another drunken giggle from her. The silence stretched out between them, though not uncomfortably. Sound was different down here; there were none of the typical outdoor noises, no city sounds, because nothing here was real except the two of them. And she wasn’t even sure they were real. 

She took another drink before offering him the bottle, but he waved it away. “I’ve always thought it was so beautiful. Even after… something kept calling me back.” She pushed herself to a sitting position, wrapping her arms around her knees. The weight of her emotions was sobering.

“I am surprised your companions would let you come here alone.”

“Mm. I didn’t give them a choice. Besides, they won’t have found Amaurot yet.”

“And yet here you sit, friendless, hopeless, and half drowned in drink. Pathetic.”

Emet Selch’s tone made her flinch. It was the same way he had sounded when he berated her on Mt. Gulg, and it cut just as deep as it had then. She knew it was pathetic, it had been pathetic when she had asked Elidibus if he could send her back. She had had ample time to consider her pitiful existence, and did not need the reminder.

“Do you have any idea how many times I have killed you? How many times I have given up and let the light consume me, because I cannot bear the thought of doing it again?” His mouth opened, presumably to respond, but she raised a hand to stop him. “I am trapped here, and none of it matters, because no matter what I change one of us still dies.” She chugged down the rest of the bottle, focusing on the burn in her chest rather than the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes.

“Oh, hero… what have you done?”

——

“Have we looked everywhere?”

“All her usual places. Here and in the Source. Even Tataru and Feo Ul can’t find her.”

“She’s just… gone.”

“And we’re sure she’s not in the Source?”

“Were she in the Source I could still find her. It is as if her soul simply ceased to exist.” The Exarch shook his head, leaning heavily on his staff. “I am sorry, my friends. This is beyond even the knowledge of the tower.”

——

Light. So much light. Searing pain shot through her body and the warrior woke with a gasp. She fell, or maybe she had been on the floor to begin with, on her hands and knees as she coughed up liquid light. As she struggled to regain control of the corruption inside her, memories came flooding back. Always in the same order. Was this a new loop? She looked around and found herself in a familiar room in Amaurot. Not a new one, then. She sat up slowly, placing her hands on her knees as she took shaky breaths to try and steady her heartbeat. Death was no stranger to her after all of this, but gods did it hurt.

A cup appeared in her line of sight, in Emet Selch’s outstretched hand, and she took it gratefully, not bothering to address the fact that he hadn’t been in the room with her a moment ago. The water did little to dull the ache in her throat, but she was glad for it all the same. “How long was I out?” Her voice was hoarse from some combination of the light and all the liquor she had consumed, but she wasn’t shocked to find herself neither drunk nor hungover.

“A few hours.” He sighed and slumped back into a chair across the room as she drained the rest of the cup. Her hands still visibly trembled, so she gripped her knees again in an effort to hide the pain. In all the times they had done this dance, this was a first for her. She usually played her role so well, either showing up here and quietly spending her last days with him until the light took her, or arriving with the rest of the Scions and pressing forth into battle. She had drunk too much, said too much, and now he would want answers. “How many times have we done this?”

So he had pieced some of it together himself, at least. She shook her head. “Not like this… I don’t usually say so much.” She made a poor attempt at a smile.

“But this isn’t the first time you’ve come to me?”

Again, she shook her head. “I can’t… I don’t remember how many times.” The truth was she had lost count a long time ago. It was exhausting living the same few days over and over again, trying every conceivable thing to change history.

“What did you do?”

“I thought if I could just reach you, somehow… if I could do it over again, I could save everyone. I just had to try harder.” Her chest tightened, tears threatening again. “I asked…” Her voice trailed off. Had she asked, or had she made a deal? She had been trapped for so long that she could no longer keep her memories straight. She had tried to bargain with Emet Selch in past loops, maybe she had done the same in reality. Pain lanced through her again and she gripped the sides of her head, curling in on herself with gritted teeth as she tried to ride out the wave. She was only vaguely aware of being scooped off the floor and into his arms.

The change was happening so much faster this time. She knew heightened emotions weakened her control, knew she should just accept it because it was not as though she wouldn’t wake again in the Pendants just like every other time. But this was the closest she had come to telling her story and if she didn’t get it out she might lose it entirely.

Though he did nothing to ease the physical pain, his touch still comforted her. She had never asked if he could stop it, or make it hurt less, but he always held her when it got to this point. She wanted to believe that he didn’t really want to watch her suffer, in spite of everything. Eventually, the light subsided and the tension in her body faded leaving her with tears and shaking hands. And as always, he put her down as soon as it stopped, leaving her seated on the edge of the bed.

“Elidibus,” she forced his name, or title rather, out on a half breath. “I asked him to send me back.” She didn’t look to see if he had a reaction to the revelation. Despite the number of times she had done this, she had never told anyone. Never let on that she was stuck in a vicious cycle, because she could not stomach their judgement. His judgment least of all. She already knew he thought her unforgivably weak.

“Why.” The sharp edge to his voice made the word sound like it was a demand, not a question.

“To save you…”

He laughed and the sound cut deep. “You absolute fool.” She turned her head away as he stepped into her line of sight, unwilling to acknowledge her own stupidity. Of course she knew how ridiculous the idea was, but she was here all the same. “Look at me.” She faced him without really seeing, hollowed out and numb as she was under the weight of his perceived disdain. “You’ve doomed both worlds, warrior of light.”

——

“Why was someone not with her?”

“Where were you then? We all had our own duties to attend to. She has always been fine on her own.”

“Still, someone should have—“

“Well no one was! And now she’s gone!”

“Alisaie, please…”

“No! I will not calm down! Not until we find her.”

——

Emet Selch stood with his back to her, staring out the window, unmoving. He had been silent for a long time, she thought, though she was already struggling to keep track of time. Torn between memories and dreams and reality, or what she assumed was reality.

“You can leave me, you know. I have done this alone before.”

“I need to think.” He took to pacing, looking agitated. She lay on her side and propped herself on her elbow to watch him. “Is this all in your head?”

“No.” That would have made the most sense, but she had already been over that theory multiple times.

“How can you be sure?”

“I tried to bed you, once.” He froze mid-step. “If it were my dream, you would have said yes.” He opened his mouth to respond, but then seemed to think better of it and resumed his pacing.

Once, and only once. Shortly after she had realized that no matter what she changed or did differently she would still wake the same day and do it all over again, it had become a game to see how absurd the timeline could get. That there was some chemistry between them was undeniable, but he had rebuked her advances. She suspected it had more to do with her corrupted state than anything else, so she hadn’t taken the rejection to heart. Still, she had never tried again.

“I assume you have tried asking Elidibus to undo it?”

“If he hears me, he offers no response.”

The warrior drifted in and out of awareness as Emet Selch continued pacing, muttering mostly to himself about her, Elidibus, and the whole impossible situation. She definitely heard at least one comment about Lahabrea and how if she hadn’t killed him, he could have done something. She almost laughed at that; as if Lahabrea would have done anything to help her.

Again, the light within her fought to take over. She curled into a ball, knees nearly touching her chest, as she tried and failed to breathe through the pain. The hairline fractures that webbed across her skin glowed brilliant white, some splitting open further and spilling light into the room. He sat beside her, stroking his fingers through her hair until the light faded to a faint glow.

“How long do you have?”

She drew a ragged breath. “Depends. Days, a week, sometimes. Not… usually like this.”

“Have you ever asked…” He didn’t need to finish the question, she knew where he was going and she shook her head. She couldn’t ask him to make the pain stop. “Why?”

She gave a broken laugh and rolled over so that she faced away from him. Why, indeed. She wished she had a good answer, either for him or for herself. Maybe she was punishing herself for all the times she killed him, or for not being strong enough to contain the warden’s light in the first place. She should have been more, better. For herself, for him, for Ardbert and the Scions, for their worlds. But in the end she had failed and everyone paid the price for her shortcomings. The bed shifted under his weight as he settled on it fully, but she didn’t move.

“You could—”

“End it? It wouldn’t matter because I’ll still wake up and have to do it again. I have ended it. A hundred times in as many ways.” She winced at a fresh stab of pain, but it faded quickly. “This was your plan, Hades. If you do not wish to watch me suffer, then you end it.”

“Stop using that name.”

“What name would you prefer, then? Emet Selch? Solus? Your Radiance?” There was bitterness in her voice. Not that it mattered. He would have no memory of this the next time they met. She could feel his eyes boring holes into the back of her head, but she had no desire to face him. He made a noise of irritation but had apparently decided the discussion was not worth having.

“Try not to die before I return.” He was gone before she could reply.

——

“This is too much, even for you Elidibus.”

“Who am I to deny a request to save your life?”

“You must return her. Undo whatever it is you have done.”

“With her absence, the rejoining is all but certain. I did not want to believe you had abandoned the cause so completely, but I can see your time in this body has affected your judgment.”

“Do not presume to know my motivations, Elidibus. If you are truly committed then even her presence should not deter you… Unless you fear she would defeat you?”

“If she returns to her path, the timeline will be restored. But her time grows short, and when she begins anew you will not remember this conversation.”

“I hope you fare better against her than I have, for your sake.”

“Goodbye, Emet Selch.”

——

The light seared her from within, and despite her best efforts the Warrior of Light was losing this battle. Her thoughts were fractured at best, though she was trying to stay present until someone returned. She could no longer recall who she waited for. The room around her was blurred around the edges of her vision, everything warped and fading. She coughed up more light, the puddle under her growing larger with each passing minute. Why was it happening so quickly?

A voice called her name from far away. She knew that voice. The sound of it was comforting.

Did she retain her own form as a light warden, like the other Warriors of Light? Or become one of the many horrors she had slain?

That voice again, saying her name. A face out of focus in her field of vision. She smiled. “Hades.” 

He would be here at her end, as he always was. 

Always? How many times had she been through this? Her confusion prompted a wave of intense pain, her body writhing to escape it.

“Listen to me.”

She was trying so hard. She was waiting for something, she had to save someone. This was important…

“I didn’t want to kill you…”

“Shh. I know you didn’t.” Hands gripped either side of her face and his face swam into sharp focus. “You cannot save me. Whatever is meant to happen, you have to do it.”

“I can’t…”

“You have no choice.”

Were those tears leaking from her eyes, or was it light? She couldn’t tell any more.

“I’m sorry.”

He leaned down until his lips grazed her forehead.

“As am I.”

——

The warrior collapsed to her knees as the last traces of light vanished into the air, hands landing on the scarred stone. She drew a shaky breath, but it came back out in a screaming wail. All of her loss and pain packed into a sound that didn’t seem like it should have come from her body. The hole that had been his chest was matched by one in her own; a chasm, malms wide, that would never be filled.

None of the Scions moved to comfort her as she wept. Why would they? She had no hope that they would understand. After all, Emet Selch was their enemy. They had not come to know him, to truly see him, as she had. 

She did not know if this time would be the last time. Her fleeting memories of the previous turn seemed to imply that the only way to break free was to do everything the same way. As much as she wanted to be free of the cycle, she hadn’t been ready to say goodbye. She never would have been ready.

It was Urianger that finally approached her; he knelt beside her and offered his arm to help her to her feet. The twins followed close behind.

“It’s over… Emet Selch is no more.”

Alphinaud’s words twisted the blade in her heart and it was all she could do to not collapse again. Only morning would tell if this would truly be the last time.


End file.
